Go for Vietnam

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While Thai and Malaysian cuisine are the big daddies of Southeast Asian cooking, Vietnamese food is like a poor cousin. However, it does not lack in taste, only hype. It is actually one of the lightest cuisines of Asia and like most food of the region, depends on fresh ingredients.

Saigon Noodles (pho saigon)

Ingredients
4 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons Oyster sauce
1 tablespoon Fish Sauce
Juice of 1 lime
400 gm boneless chicken fillet,
300 gm raw shrimps, peeled, and halved lengthways
375 gm thick rice noodles
2 tablespoons oil
6 cloves garlic, chopped
2 onions, finely chopped
200 gm Bok Choi, shredded
25 g bamboo shoots
250 gm bean sprouts
6 asparagus spears, cooked and chopped into 5 cm lengths
1 sprig coriander leaves

Method
Mix the soy sauce, oyster sauce and fish sauce with the lime juice and divide them between two bowls.
Put the chicken in one and the shrimps in the other bowl and marinate for an hour. Cook the rice noodles and set aside to cool. Heat the oil in a wok, stir fry the garlic and shallots for 30 seconds, add the chicken with the marinade. Stir and fry until the meat changes colour.
Add the bok choi, bamboo shoots, bean sprouts, shrimps and asparagus. Stir and toss until the shrimps change colour.
Run warm water through the cooked noodles and separate them. Then, add them to the wok. Stir fry everything, adding a little water if the mixture seems too dry. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve.

Vietnamese Fried Rice (Com Chien)
Like many Chinese dishes this fried rice uses a “chicken seasoning powder”. A maggi cube should do the trick.

Ingredients
300 gm rice
40 gm carrot, diced
200 gm shrimps, deveined
2 tbsp cooking oil
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 onions, finely chopped
100 gm sausage, diced (optional)
2 tbsp green peas
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp sugar
1 tsp chicken seasoning powder
1/3 tsp ground white pepper
1 spring onion, thinly sliced
1 sprig Coriander leaves
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 red chilli

Method
Wash and cook the rice.
Blanch diced carrot in boiling water for 2 minutes. Drain well. Blanch diced shrimps in boiling water.
Heat 1/2 tablespoon oil in a wok. Add eggs, stirring quickly until cooked, remove and set aside.
Sauté garlic and shallots until fragrant. Add shrimps, sausages and carrot. Stir fry for five minutes then add rice and green peas.
Season with salt, sugar, chicken seasoning powder and pepper. Mix in eggs and continue to fry till rice is dry.
Sprinkle in spring onion.
Garnish with coriander and serve with fish sauce and sliced chilli.